 Good evening. I'm calling to order this meeting of the Arlington Select Board on Wednesday, November 8. I am Select Board Chair Eric Helmuth. Tonight's meeting is being conducted in a hybrid format consistent with provisions by the state legislature for remote Participations in public meetings. Before we begin, please note the following. First, this meeting is being conducted in the Select Board chambers and over Zoom. It is being recorded and simultaneously broadcast on ACMI. Second, people wishing to join the meeting by Zoom may find information on how to do so on the town's website. People participating either in person or by Zoom are reminded that you may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate, we ask you to provide your full name in the interest of developing a record of the meeting. Third, all participants are advised that people may be listening who do not provide comment, but those persons are not required to identify themselves. Both Zoom participants and people watching on ACMI can follow the posted agenda materials found on the website of the town, specifically the Select Board agendas and minutes page. This evening in the agenda, there are two opportunities in the agenda for public comment. The first will be the license tearing for the restaurant, which is item 11, and then following that the open forum. During the open forum, I'll announce the nature of that, but know that if you are participating on Zoom and you want to participate in public comment, what you will do is raise your hand at that time when I announce the public comment is open. If you don't know how to raise your hand in Zoom, now would be an excellent time to Google for how to do so. Let's see how much of the town's business we can get done tonight. I would be happy to do that. Thank you. Yeah, just raise your hand if I forget. Yeah, I'll make a note. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's a general policy. I'm very willing to to do that. Remember the public requests. Let me just make this a note. Okay, so we have two proclamations for items two and three. I'll suggest to the board that we dispense with the reading of them, and I'm happy to if the board member would like me to do that. The first one for Bob Sprague, I'm going to be reading at an event on November 15th. I think the proclamation is dated that way. And then Small Business Saturday will be distributed throughout the by the town's economic development coordinator and was sent to the Small Business Saturday Association. But leave that to my colleagues. Fine. Do you have approval? Okay. Is that for? Attorney coming in, can we do both items two and three together as a single vote or do we need to vote them separately? Separate vote, Mr. Chair. All right, so let's take up the one for Bob Sprague. So we have Mr. Hurd and Mrs. Mahon. Okay, so motion, any discussion? Motion to approve item two, the proclamation for Rob Sprague by Mr. Hurd and seconded by Mrs. Mahon. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Is unanimous. Item three, the proclamation for Small Business Saturday. And I'll pause here and say inform the public that if you do want to see the text of these proclamations, it is published on the town's website and the select board's agendas and minutes page. So Small Business Saturday proclamation, looking for motions? Move for approval. All right. Thank you. All right, any discussion? That second paragraph was really interesting. I'll be talking to folks about that. They have some really interesting data on it, you know, so that's all, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I was glad when the association approached me and then I ran up by our staff in DPCD and also the chamber of commerce lays on. They said, oh yeah, we used to do this. And so it's a nice, it's a nice tradition to bring that back to promote small businesses in Arlington, which are really vital to our, to our 1600 businesses in Arlington. I would have guessed half, but I'm really impressed. Yeah. No, it's great. Not bad for a community of 46,000 people. Mr. Chair, just one thing to add that Small Business Saturday is November 25th, 2023. That is worth mentioning. Yes. And we have an, and that's right. And we have a future agenda item coming up while here on the Accident and Cassette agenda for that. We can talk a little bit about that. Okay. So any further discussion? Thank you for filling that in. So we have a motion to approve Small Business Saturday proclamation by Mr. Decorsi. Seconded by Mr. Hurd. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Post. Also unanimous five nothing votes. All right. Item four for approval acceptance of funds from the friends of the Robbins Farm Park. Mr. Town Manager. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the board's consideration this evening, we have a very generous gift being submitted on behalf of the friends of the Robbins Farm Park in the amount of $53,000. This gift is intended to support the renovation project currently underway at the Robbins Farm Park playground. And the specific purpose of this gift is to support inclusive play. So as is customary, this will be before the board so that you may formally accept this gift and that will allow us to then deposit these funds separately and spend them directly on the ongoing renovation project that is designed in such a manner to try to introduce as many inclusive play elements as possible. Sort of the first of its nature here in Arlington. So it is a bit of a momentous occasion on behalf of the recreation department and the Park and Recreation Commission. I wish to thank the friends for their successful and as I understand it ongoing fundraising efforts that have led to this significant contribution. And if I could, Mr. Chair, I do believe we have a representative from the friends of Robbins Farm Park. Jim Hampie here this evening and I would invite him up if we could. Please. We'd be delighted to hear from you, sir. Thank you very much. You can introduce yourself and where you live. Yeah, I'm Jim Hampie. I live on Coolidge Road in Arlington here. One quick update since we sent that note to Joe. Since that last week we've actually raised another $5,000. So the check you have there is for $58,000. I present it on behalf of the Friends of Robbins Farm Park Board very happily. And I think more importantly on behalf of the 350 plus individuals and families who have donated to our campaign, I think it speaks to the incredible support for this amazing park. I think as Jim mentioned, the key issue that I've become very passionate about, I think I speak for the board and have learned the most about is the idea of inclusive playgrounds. And to me that means not only making playgrounds accessible but making them available for all kids to actually be able to play together. And I hope that we can continue to set the bar higher and higher for what we consider inclusive for playgrounds in Arlington. We're very happy to support that. One to say thank you for the town for investing in this amazing park and playground. Thanks to the Parks and Rec Committee and Joe specifically for his leadership and agency landscape and design has created a fantastic design. And then lastly, as Jim mentioned, we're not done. Our goal is 63,000. So we will be back with another $5,000 check as soon as we can. Thank you very much. So that's like what, another four days? Hopefully. You just came up with like three or five days. I know, I know. Since Friday. I'm just teasing. Full reaction. Thank you very much. I believe Mrs. Mahal, I will now turn to the board as I am fond of saying. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Absolutely. I mean just a moment. I just couldn't resist on that one. Exuberance is very much well deserved. I want to thank you and every person who gave every single dollar and those who continue to do that in the future. And I'm really impressed how you've adopted and endorsed, you know, an inclusive playground as well as I saw a lot of the outreach that you did pre-planning for the final plan of what the Robbins Farm playground would look like. And I saw that in there as near the top as item for consideration. I was like, oh, please, please. I know when Joe Conley, our recreation director, who's fantastic. I think he's also implemented that up at the Allington Reservoir. And when I see that, it's near and dear to my heart. And I know it costs more to do something like that, but it's money well raised and money well spent because all of us, whether it affects us personally or tertiary, you know, to see something like that and know there's not a hindrance to anyone, except for the natural shyness of a kid, you know, that's going to hide behind mom, dad, or caretakers, take his left leg until they get used to everybody. But I want to thank you and say that's something that's really near and dear to my heart and the board's heart. And as you said, and as Mr. Conley has done in the tail manager, want to continue on with that trend as we move forward, but also recognizing it is going to cost more than your traditional playground. But I think it's money well spent. Thanks. And I think for for us, raising awareness of the issue is important. And I think one of the things I've learned is I think I came in thinking there was a bit of a trade off between fun and challenging and inclusive. And that's actually not the case. It has to be fun and challenging for all kids to want to go and get the value of learning to play together. The trade off is I think one of the big ones is the cost. And part of it is that equipment manufacturers aren't currently making standardized inclusive play. So then it's a custom order and the cost go up, right? So I think the more we can raise awareness and help towns be able to fund it, it's a wonderful cost. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Hurd. Oh, and I'd like to move approval. Thank you, Mr. Second. And thank you for the amazing contribution in the work. We'll have to get some of your secrets and fundraising. I mean, this Arlington's parks in general are treasurous to us, but this one in particular, I think it's near and dear to everyone's heart in Arlington. And a lot of people come in from other towns to come to the Robbins Park. And there's a great look for the town to show that we're taking steps to incorporate inclusive play elements. I can't imagine anything more heart-wrenching than seeing a kid sit and watch other kids play. So it's an amazing thing. It's great that that is what you focused on in the improvements, because I think that will really make this park a shining light for other parks. And an example for what we do in other areas of town. And I look forward to it. I certainly, my boys look forward to it. When I was little, we had the long metal slide that shot you about 30 feet across the sand. I thought it was fun, but not the safest. Two huge concrete slides that should be plenty fun. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks. Mr. Diggins. Thank you very much. I mean, and as everyone said, it is money well spent. And as you said, I mean, right now it's more expensive because it's custom, but the more people do it, I mean, then the more they'll become standardized. And someone has to lead the way. And I'm glad this community is, I mean, and it is part of values, I mean, and you have to put your money where your mouth is. So thank you very much. Mr. Diggins. Mr. Diggins. And I want to echo the comments of my colleagues. Thank you very much. And just really impressive to see the amount of money that you've raised and what is going to continue to be raised and to make an outstanding site that we'll all be proud of. Thank you. Thank you. I remember, I think it was last summer when design concepts were being floated in the park as they lived down the street. And actually with the representative of the organization here, I was thinking to myself, I wonder if my membership's up to date. But my husband and I have been very glad to be members of the friends and so grateful for everything the organization does. Not, I mean, this fundraising is incredible. And thank you for that. But also the events in the parks, some of the best event posters in town and we know who to thank for that. But the work that the organization does to really help the community embrace and enjoy the park is just so valuable. And, you know, it's easy for me to say because I can walk to the park and I do every day, but I think for the entire community it's really a joyful place for everyone to gather and this will make it even more so for all children. So thank you. So we have a motion to gratefully accept the gift of $58,000 from the Friends of the Robins Farm Park by Mrs. Mahan and seconded by Mr. Herd. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, now move to the consent agenda. We have the minutes of meetings from September 27th, October 11th, October 17th and October 23rd. Requests for free parking for local holiday shopping by Beth Locke, the executive director of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce and from Jenna O'Rearden from the Arlington Heights Community Association. We have a request for some traffic customization around the holiday stroll in the Arlington Heights on December the 9th. I do, I think we can, with the board's consent, as it were, we can vote all these at once, but I do want to point out on the item six, the request for local holiday shopping. I think that is worth enumerating just for the public's information. So let me just go to that. Sorry, I'm having some computer problems here. So the town has, I think traditionally we've done this, I think every year that I can remember that we have allowed the parking lot in the center of town to be free during the holiday shopping season and the proposal before us, this would be the Russell Common and also the Water Street Municipal Lot, so the two lots that are there would have free parking on Saturday November 23rd, I'm sorry November 25th. Saturday the 25th, Saturday December 2nd, Saturday December 9th, Saturday December 16th and Saturday December 23rd 2023. This is a way to really support the small businesses on the holiday shopping season and the residents who are going to be there. I'll also note it in this letter that the first lights in the Whittemore Park ceremony, which is a popular event to kick off the season, will be happening on Thursday the 30th of November at 6 p.m. at the Dolla Museum as well, right there. So, but that's just for the public's benefit and I'll leave it at the board for motions discussion on the consent agenda. I'll make a motion on the consent agenda. I do know it on the last item on the consent agenda, the holiday stroll, did it request being a police officer? I didn't see that confirmed, so I just wanted to... Looks like the police detail is checked, yes. And there's a reference to that. Isn't that they want that, but it just didn't indicate that it had been granted? So just... So I'm assuming it's gone where it needs to go, but I just don't want to... I'm assuming that, but I don't think we should assume that, so we should just make sure that it has gone where it needs to go, so that whoever needs to sign off on the detail will do that. I want to ask Mrs. Marr, but Ms. Marr, sorry. Well, it says in there that they're in contact with Officer Roteau as well as Dan Warren for the police in DPW. I think it says will contact. Will contact, yeah. Is that your understanding, Ms. Marr? That's correct. It's the applicant's responsibility to reach out to the police department for detail. Sometimes they can be filled. Sometimes they can't. They are in contact, and the police department is able to fill the detail. It will be filled. All right. Go ahead. That's all, yeah, that's fine. Just a question for the town manager on that. If the detail cannot be filled, what happens and what do you recommend would be the action? I would recommend the event still proceed as planned. And if there were any issues, we would call for the on-call sector car. So thanks. Yeah, thank you very much for raising that. Thank you, Ms. Simone. Any other discussion? I think I need a second for the second agenda. All right. So for the consent agenda items five through seven, we have a motion to approve all subject to conditions by, I assume, Mr. Diggins and a second by Mr. Hurd. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? It is unanimous. Okay, that brings us to appointments. First up, we have the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee. Appointee Linda Epstein or Epstein. Hi. Come on up. Sure. You're very welcome. Express Christopher Tarkin's request. Nice that we have two chairs. He's not able to join. He wanted to mention that he is aware of Linda's leadership skills in part because of her participation in a softball team, which I only learned of today. But I've known Linda for some years as a non-voting member of our committee. And I think, I don't know, showing up is a key part of the job. And she's certainly been doing that and contributing to our discussions. And I think many of you know Linda through her efforts as a citizen member of the committee on Appleton. I think one of the most challenging things that the bicycle community has faced in my time in our town. And so I think you see her contribution in helping to architect a solution that preserves the safety of all users of the road and meets all the other needs of the town. So we are very pleased to recommend Linda Epstein as the new executive board member for the Ireland's Bicycle Advisory Committee. Thank you very much. It's a ringing endorsement. Ms. Epstein, if you'd like to say a few words about your interest and what you'd like to accomplish in the role. Thanks Doug. Yes, I've got involved. I'm an avid cyclist. I rode into Cambridge to work for many years. And now I ride the other direction to Bedford. I use the bike path a lot more now. So I'm interested in some improvements there. And the Appleton project was very personal for me because I know the family of Charlie Proctor. But I'm really excited to be working with the town and different committees and help advise and help promote safe cycling in Arlington. And yeah, I'm looking forward to joining the committee in an official capacity. So thanks. Thank you very much. And I'll turn to the board. Motions, questions, discussion. Mrs. Mahon. Excuse me. First, I'd like to move approval and say thank you so much. I know you're not as has been stated. You're not a stranger to the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee. Still a aback, right? Sometimes they change. So to me that demonstrates a great commitment that you have been participating for years. And thank you to your family, your husband, because I know it's a sacrifice away from your family. Once you volunteer, because we can't afford to pay you all here in the town of Arlington. But I'm very appreciative that there's really no learning curve and you're ready to go on day one. And thanks for stepping up to the plate and doing this. Mission, of course. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Ms. Epstein, for your willingness to serve. And I'm really impressed by your bicycling summary here. And a note for the public. You've been volunteering for the Pan-Mass Challenge since 1997. So well done on that. And the list of activities in your experience will really assist the Bicycle Advisory Committee. So thank you. And if I didn't say second, I'll second it. You got it. This is Mahon's motion. Mr. Dickens? Yes. So thank you. Thank you very much. I mean, I also see that you're part of the Mass Bicycle Coalition. I think they actually belong to the, they have a membership on the Regional Transportation Advisory Council, for the Boston Region. And so we're familiar with them. And I would very much like at some point in time, to talk with you about the experience with the Mass Have Appleton Design Review Committee. You know, just to kind of like debrief on that and understand me how we, about that process and how we can maybe make a similar process better. I mean, so I'm not going to ask you now, I mean, for any comments on it, but I'd just like to talk with you, me partly as a member of the Board, but also, I mean, as the liaison to the Transportation Advisory Committee. And I'll just say, you probably know this already, that there is the bike lane design guide that's well underway. And I got a glimpse of it, you know, earlier this weekend. Looks good. So, yeah, yeah, it's learned a lot from that, you know. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, I think Mr. DeCourse said your resume here is really, really impressive. And, you know, I think you'll just continue to do great things and do great things as an official member of the committee. And thank you to the Bicycle Advisory Committee. That, you know, you have been a stable and driving force for improvements in the town for many, many years. I am personally grateful for it. As a born-again bicyclist in my mid to late 50s, I have begun to benefit from those things. And now, on the ground or on the street, as it were, nothing like being there yourself to start to appreciate good and bad bicycle infrastructure and the possibilities. So I'm personally interested, but also as a town official, and appreciative for what you do. So we have a motion to appoint by Mrs. Mahan and seconded by Mr. DeCourse. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Unanimous. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have Item 9, Arlington Committee on Tourism and Economic Development Appointee, Olga Baker. Is Olga here in person or on Zoom? I'm promoting her decisions. Excellent. You just have to unmute your camera. I believe you need to unmute. Good evening. Hi, very good evening. Apologies, I didn't have to be on Zoom today. That's all right. And just before you start, can you hear me all right? Can you hear us? Yeah, perfect. Okay, great. Good evening. Thank you very much for your interest and willingness to serve. If you would just introduce yourself to say where you live and give us an outline of why you're interested and what you hope to accomplish. Sure, yeah. Olga Baker right on Marathon Street east Arlington. I was very excited about this committee for a few reasons. Actually took my time trying to pick up the right phone for me. My initial goal was just personal, trying to get more involved in town operations. I'd say Arlington is probably the first place I've lived. That is now feeling like my home for the foreseeable future. I've been in Cambridge beforehand and my husband is born and raised here. So I want to just get more involved in having a small child. It's important for me to figure out how I can help out. So the economic development and tourism is particularly interesting just because I have, I'd say, a fairly diverse and culture background from living in different places and doing lots of travel. I'm also very inspired in my travels to see how different towns and cities operate and trying to sort of drop people in and hopefully spend money and just increase activity. So I'm hoping to be inspired to do this for Arlington as well. And I myself am an entrepreneur, a small business owner. So I think this would be a great opportunity to just meet more like-minded people. Thank you very much. And I'll turn to the board for discussions. Mr. Herd. Move approval. Thank you for your willingness to serve. On the committee. I don't think I'm a liaison. I think I'm on this particular committee. But it's a fun committee. We do a lot of good. We're really kind of geared towards promoting small businesses in town. And then we have a lot of work coming up the next couple of years for the 2025 celebration. So I'm sure once you jump right in, we'll start getting involved with that. But it's a good group. It's a good mix of people that have been here for 50 years and people that have lived here for just three or four years. So I look forward to working with you. And thank you for stepping up and serving. Thank you so much. I want to go last on this one. All right. Well, someone has to second at some point. Second. Thank you. Thank you, sir, for your service. Anybody else before Mr. Diggins goes last? All right, you're up. So I am thrilled to welcome you aboard. I mean, your resume me was a delight to read. What I liked about it was that it gave hints. I mean, it made you want to like ask you more. So I will hopefully have a chance to meet and talk to me for a little prolonged period at some point. But just a couple of little questions now. So one is kind of a little deep into what you wrote. You said that you have worked. Hold on a second. Let me pull it up. You promoted grower friendly processes to reduce the burden of data collection on farmers. I just I'm trying to understand me. What's a grower friendly process? Yeah. Oh my gosh. You're taking me back into my corporate world, but that wasn't too long ago. So so to everybody else, the company I was working for, it was in food tech. I have a separate master's in food policy. So I'm very interested in sustainable food and also poverty alleviation and so on. But that's a bit of a detour. So I was working for a company that was working on carbon capture initiatives. You know, carbon drawdown working with farmers to figure out how they can farm and do agriculture in a way that's more environmentally friendly and capture carbon in the soil. And so when you think about a farmer that's out there working, you know, 14 16 days physical labor, but then they're asked by a corporation to collect a bunch of data and have technology involved and, you know, be part of meetings and just a type of a type of work structure that they've never really done before and frankly don't have an interest in doing because they got to do their farming. So grower friendly practices are about how can we minimize the technological burden and take time away from farmers, valuable time and make it as easy for them as possible to collect and record data regarding the carbon sequestration in their soil. I'm glad to ask me. So that was not what I was expecting, but I'm glad to ask because that kind of challenge, I think we see in lots of venues, me where you have an employee, me that has a lot of work to do, me and then they're being asked me, well, we want this too because that will help me, the enterprise function better. And it's like, well, yeah, we understand the goal, but now I need to do this on top of me, what you've asked me to do. I'm already really busy. And so the kind of solutions that you deploy for that, me, I can see having applicability elsewhere, not necessarily part of what you do on this committee, but still, I'm glad I asked me. And I do like what you said about, you challenged the status quo inquisitively. And so I'm kind of curious just to be an example of where you did that, me, and how you could potentially do that with the tourism, the economic tourism group. Yeah, so this is, I think I did that. Everywhere I went for not just my 10 years in corporate, but just in my life, it's really a personality trait for better or worse. I tend to ask a lot of questions and depends on the crowd. Sometimes that's well-received and sometimes that's just seen as nagging and consuming, but that's really how I get to the root cause of problems. But it's very difficult for me to just accept that face value, a process that's been in place for 50 years or documents that have been used just because somebody created them back in the day. I really want to know why everything is in place today and is it necessary, is it duplicative? Obviously I'm all about efficiency, but also is it benefiting just one party, is it one-sided? It takes me a good amount of time in every job that I've done. I take a lot of time at the beginning to get to know everybody that's involved and ask a lot of questions for how we got to where we are today. And I find that just makes the execution of whatever needs to get done a lot faster and easier, even though it may seem overdrawn at the beginning. So that's how I prefer to operate. Obviously, I've worked with people in sales and marketing and engineering that have very competing priorities and they're not always willing to do the operational grunt work with those sorts of timelines. So that's where the competing priorities come in, but as much as I can get an understanding of what are the principles or people or dynamics that got us to where we are today, it's just much easier to think ahead for the future and maybe challenge the status quo because sometimes it's just outdated or not relevant. I just love every word you said, Hira. And especially at the end of it with me, thinking about the future, because for me, especially with tourism, and Arlington in particular, I think it's more so that we need to build something that's going to bring people to Arlington. Yes, it has this history, but I think there is more potential in creating something that's going to want to make people come to Arlington, Hira. And so just think about me, what it is that we could do that could bring people and at the same time, he creates some new girls. And I think you're a person that can do that, but also would take a lot of joy in doing it. So I am thrilled, just thrilled to have you on board. I think you're going to benefit that group, me and the town a lot, so thank you. All right, further discussion? Thank you very much. All right, so we have a motion to appoint by Mr. Herd. And seconded by Mr. D'Corsi, I think. It's been a while. Yes, sir. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? The Intermissed. Thank you very much for your willingness to serve. We look forward to your contributions. Item 10, appointment to the Arlington Redevelopment Board. We have Shayna Cormoran-Houston or Houston. Please correct my pronunciation as needed. Shayna Cormoran-Houston. That's pretty good. Welcome. This is an important post. I think you have a pretty good idea of what you're signing up for. But we appreciate your willingness to serve. And I'm going to give the town manager an opportunity since you're the prime mover of this to say a few words. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think what you said was very salient in the fact that Shayna served well on the MBTA community's working group, which was stood up at this time last year in the lead up to a special town meeting this fall. So Shayna understands well the amount of time, the level of commitment, and the public interest in the work of the Redevelopment Board. So I think that not only did she perform admirably and the director of planning and community development was thrilled that Shayna was interested. I'm also glad when someone knows exactly what it is they're getting into with the heightened level of interest and scrutiny on the work of the Redevelopment Board. I think it was important for some to know what they were signing up for in a way. So we thanks Shayna for stepping forward. Thank you. So we'll hear from Shayna or from Ms. Corman Houston. And then we'll have an opportunity for board questions and comments. And then I know there's a member of the public who would like to address the board. So we'll do that at the very end before we take our vote. So go ahead with your presentation. Thanks and thank you for having me this evening. I moved to Arlington about two years ago and it's been a real pleasure becoming part of the town community. I have been so impressed since I moved here about how the town thinks about its priorities and how to translate those priorities into zoning. And I feel like that's a place where I can bring my talents to the town and my experience to the town. And I'd just be so honored to be able to do that. So yeah, so when the planning director suggested to me that this might be something to explore, I was very excited. Thank you very much. And I'll turn to the board for discussion. Mr. Herg. I'll move approval. And again, thank you for allowing us to step up and serve. It's a lot of time. Luckily, you got in at a good time because you just wrapped up the special town meeting that they took up a lot of time with the Redevelopment Board. But it never really lets up. But the town relies on the Redevelopment Board for all the zoning matters. And there's a lot of zoning matters that are going to continue to come up for years to come. Affordable housing is really a major issue in town and how we do that is very difficult. So the road ahead is hard. But we're making progress. And luckily for this board, we can always, whenever someone asks about zoning, we say, oh, that's not us. Go talk to the Redevelopment Board because we know nothing about zoning. We don't want to know nothing about zoning. Did you see my questions from ACMI for reelection? But go ahead. But again, thank you for your willingness to serve and I look forward to working with you. I'll second that. You have questions to come in? Thank you. As the manager said, you know what you're getting into and you want more. So we couldn't ask for anything more than better. Thank you. Mr. Course, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for your willingness to serve. Mr. Herd referred to one of the other committees tonight as a fund committee. I'm not sure the Redevelopment Board is all that much fun. But it's really interesting work and it's really important work. And we appreciate your willingness to serve. And I'm impressed by your background in affordable housing and impressed by the thesis that you've performed at the University of North Carolina on low income housing tax credit property. So best of luck and thanks again. Well, it depends on your definition of fund, Mr. Course. Mrs. Mohan. I think I heard correctly that you were a brave soul and were involved with the MBTA communities two years, seemed like four score and 72 years process. And one of the things that I was really impressed with that and I think really served as the functionality at the special town meeting, ultimately Article 12 MBTA communities being successful was that that was a very long, arduous process with so many different competing points of view as well as what the state law and the governor of Massachusetts mandates outlines were and taking all those different forces and then saying these are the constraints onto which we can apply that. I think you and that committee really demonstrated great volunteerism and expertise to the town. And one of the things I was really impressed with and I think you, did you chair that committee? Did not. Oh, you did not. Okay, I'm blanking on that. But one of the things I was impressed with that that you can bring to the redevelopment board is, you know, starting at the initial phase, going out, listening, not taking things, you know, keep listening ears on and not taking things personally, which is very difficult to do. A lot of people say, oh, tell me anything. I won't take a personal. But then coming up in the end with the proposal that was successful, not just for town meeting, but for the town of Allington. So, and not that I have, and I was only joking about the redevelopment board because I had a recent reelection and all the questions came up. There were more about zoning and other things and I want to talk about select board, but my years from going to the redevelopment board as a citizen activist, neighborhood activist, one of the things I've always appreciated with redevelopment board members is similar to what a previous appointee spoke about that just because something's set in place and appears to be a proven formula, that doesn't mean you can't relook at it, maybe come up with the exact same zoning type of zoning, but maybe able to tweak it and customize it for the future. So, and I'm thrilled to see a woman on the redevelopment board and look forward to working with you as a colleague. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. In addition to seconding all the appreciation for my colleagues, I'll just note that I also noticed and really appreciate your pretty deep background in affordable housing development and I'm privileged to be the select board's liaison and member to the Affordable Housing Fund Board of Trustees and that's a group that's fairly new getting off the ground, but it's full of a lot of very talented people and I'd love to think of you as a resource and it may be an opportunity for some brainstorming as in collaboration between the Housing and Justice Fund and the Redevelopment Board where that would make sense because I think there's some exciting possibilities. I think that would be wonderful. Great. Well, thank you very much. I think that concludes our questions for you. If you want to take a seat in the front row, in case we want to call you back and I'll invite any member of the public who wants to comment on this appointment. Sir, just have a seat and introduce yourself and if we can address the board. Okay, thank you. Good evening, my name is Barry Jaspin. I live in Campbell Road in Arlington. I'd like to start by thanking the select board for allowing me to speak tonight and regarding the candidate Shayna Corman-Houston. I'd also like to thank Ms. Corman-Houston for her recent contributions to Arlington via the MBTA Communities Act Working Group and her willingness to give even more of her time to Arlington via the ARB. I do not know Ms. Corman-Houston personally, but I'm sure she is an upstanding and civic-minded resident of our town. That said, I am here tonight to speak against her nomination to the ARB. Ms. Corman-Houston is presently employed as the real estate director at the Planning Office of Urban Affairs, which is part of the archdiocese of Boston. As many of you may already know, the poet corner neighborhood is facing a significant issue regarding the potential sale and development of land owned by the archdiocese of Boston across the street from Camillus Church and adjacent to the poet corner park on Dow Ave, known as Zero Kipling Road. For the record, I am in a butter of Zero Kipling Road. The neighborhood has longstanding concerns regarding the development of this parcel dating back to when the archdiocese last tried to sell it 20 years ago. The concerns are primarily related both to public health since the parcel is a formal dump former, dump site containing known toxins and environmental impact since it includes a wetland. And there are some other concerns as well. Zero Kipling Road is presently listed for sale and thus questions about its development are almost certain to come before the ARB during this candidate's term. It seems to me inappropriate for the archdiocese to gain increased influence over the ARB by having their director of real estate on the board precisely when they expect to have contested business before that board. Given her unavoidable conflict of interest, I request that this candidate's nomination be declined until Zero Kipling Road issue is resolved. I would certainly support her candidacy after that. Furthermore, this candidate was only nominated on November 1st one week ago tonight, giving the neighborhood very little time to learn about her nomination, evaluate the candidate and consider nominating an alternative candidate. If declining the nomination is too big of an ask, I request that it be tabled to allow the neighborhood to find and nominate an alternate candidate for consideration. Given the upcoming holidays, I suggest January as a time for reconsideration. Finally, before voting on approving Ms. Corman Houston either today, tonight, or in the future, I strongly urge that you ask her to formally commit to recusing herself from any and all discussions or votes related to archdiocese business and to record her answer in the minutes. And this idea came to me as I saw Mr. DeCorsi recuse himself during recent discussions of the Appleton redevelopment, which I was very impressed with, you know, as you basically, you know, stepped out of the room for that whole conversation. I thought that was terrific. I don't even know what your conflict is. But anyway, anyway, that was my statement. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. I'll turn to the board if anybody has any reaction or discussion. Mr. DeCorsi? Yeah, any reaction. And the reference here from time to time are members of boards that find themselves in a situation where they need to recuse themselves if the circumstances so warrant. And I view that as a case-by-case type situation. I've had it a few times, Mr. Hurd, it has had, the chairman, Mr. Helmut, has had it. So I don't view that if there is a potential. I'm not saying there is a conflict right now, but I don't view the potential for a conflict on a particular matter to be something that goes to the candidate's qualifications for a board, in this case, the Redevelopment Board. And I think if a matter comes up and if Ms. Corwin Houston is approved tonight, I imagine that, or I expect that she will look if there is a conflict and recuse herself if she deems it appropriate after consulting with Town Council. But I don't view it as a qualification that I need to pass on as a member of the select board. So that's where I stand on that, Mr. Hurd. Yeah, I would just reiterate that, because I mean, we're all local and we're dealing with issues that touch the people we know and we have businesses. And so if some issue comes up, then we recuse ourselves. I don't think we would go off of a potential issue that isn't even in process right now, which I don't think the Redevelopment Board would even hear anything related to that property. And that would be the zoning board of appeals in the, I can't even think of the environmental board in my brain. Conservation Commission. Conservation Commission, CBA. But anyways, yeah, I mean, if a conflict comes up, we recuse ourselves. But again, that doesn't disqualify a candidate who's willing to submit. Attorney Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Michael Cunningham, Town Council, if I could just weigh in at this point, I think I would. Please. I would confirm what has been said by select board member to Corsi and select board member Hurd that from, we don't know all the specific facts, but the objection as elicited tonight would not qualify as a blanket disqualification for the nominee. To the extent there's a later conflict of interest under 268A, the individual could recuse herself, but I think I agree with the attorney Hurd that most likely this particular project would probably be going before the zoning board of appeals and conservation commission anyway. But again, if there was a specific factual circumstance that wanted a warranted of recusal, that could be taken up at that time. I do not believe the objection as voiced tonight qualifies as a reason for blanket disqualification and this candidate is appropriate for this board's consideration. Thank you, attorney, coming in. Mr. Dickens. I'm gonna potentially invite Mr. Feeney to weigh in on this respect to tabling the candidate because my understanding is that this position was open for a while and the normal course of action. I'm sorry, the normal course of action is that the town manager conducts the surgery and then will recommend me someone to us and open meeting law requires that we provide 48 hours notice me, I really welcome the input me from residents on this me, but it would be really a deviation from the normal process me to table this me. And if the town manager wants to correct me if I said anything wrong, I invite him to if he wants to say anything more, but he doesn't have to either itself. That's your option, Mr. Feeney. Sure, thank you, Mr. Chair, thank you, Mr. Dickens. I would just add that yes, this vacancy has existed since January of this year. So I know the redevelopment board and the director of planning community development are eager to get someone else on the board and weighing in on matters that will be before them in the coming weeks and months. I'll go last. We also, I'm off, thank you. Mrs. Mahoney. And I just wanna be in the process person that I am appointments to the redevelopment board that's under the purview of the town manager. The role that we have, we really can't, I guess we could as a matter of courtesy talk about tabling, but we just can only vote yes or no. We don't solicit candidates and we don't have any other involvement in the process. And I think the great benefit that we have with this candidate and other candidates that we approved tonight and other nights and sometimes it can cut both ways is if you live in Arlington, unless you're independently rich and never wanna work again, you do have a job and in some sphere I myself have in the past had to recuse myself from a meeting and as a professional man or woman, when that does arise, you certainly are aware of that and you take yourself out of that situation. So I apologize that we're going on and on about this because I know you're well versed about it and where it is the redevelopment board, our redevelopment board members, if you look at their resume, their curriculum vitae, you'll see they have a background in some form of development whether it's real estate, an attorney, so on and so forth. And it's been that way since I've been on the board, select board since 1999. So respectfully, we can't table, we can either vote yes or no and I just wanna apologize that you kinda stepped into this, Myer, because I'm still very, very excited. This has been a farce, we have had other candidates and this hasn't happened before. And as I said before, I'm looking forward to a professional woman serving on the redevelopment board and bringing your expertise to that. In regarding the Archdiocese project, we don't even know what it is yet. We really can't get into any of those logistics as far as I know they haven't even put it out to bid or anything, they put out feelers and sort of informational, but there's been nothing official. So to start to opine on that, I think would get us all going down a road that could hurt all parties involved, neighbors, the Archdiocese and whatever else comes out of that. So this board is certainly aware of that process. The town manager has kept us informed. We're waiting to see when anything official is decreed. It hasn't happened yet. So to me, that's not even a basis. So I would like to continue and move forward with this appointment. Any further discussion for the board? Okay, I appreciate all the comments this evening and I think we're ready for a vote. So we have a motion to approve by Mr. Hurd and seconded by Mr. Diggins. All in favor of an appointment, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? It is a five nothing appointment. Congratulations. Thank you for your service. Thank you. Okay, it's moves to item 11, licenses and permits. We have floor approval, common vitular license for Umi Sushi at 474 Massachusetts Avenue. And we have any representatives here if you'd like to come to the table? Can I be my sister? Of course, absolutely. Yeah, please introduce yourself and... Can you help me to translate? Yes, that's fine, of course. Yeah, whatever is helpful to you. We appreciate you wanting to do business in Arlington. We look forward to hearing some about your plans. Please proceed. Please say your name first. Oh, my name is Qiao Chen. Yeah, I would like to own the Umi Sushi as a change owner right now. Yeah. I'm Cathy, I'm her younger sister. So I'm here to assist her and translate in case she needs help. Yeah. Thank you very much. Can you tell us something about why you were interested in operating the business and why you chose Arlington? Why did you choose Arlington? Why did you choose Arlington? Why did you choose Arlington? You can't say it. You can't say it. So can I... I just want to know... I speak all Chinese, then that my sister to translate. Oh, I can translate. Absolutely fine. Yeah, of course. I think he is a better... Yeah, yeah, so that's fine. Because Arlington is a very good town because there are some business friends by the side. And they all say this is a good town. And I have a friend who has opened a Chinese restaurant in Arlington. Okay. It's the Xiechuan Damping. Let's try this one first. Okay. And first, you know, Charles thinks Arlington is a very, very good town and community. And then she has a good friend and already opened a Chinese restaurant, Xiechuan Damping, which is in... Chamon Avenue? Xiechuan Damping in Massachusetts Avenue. Xiechuan Damping in Massachusetts Avenue is her good friend. So, you know, her friend, she has a lot of good things about the town. So that's the thing. She's very interested. That's one of the reasons that's why she's very interested in opening her own business in this town. Establish, yeah. That's wonderful. Thank you. And just a moment. For everybody else in the room, we'd appreciate if the conversations could go outside. Just it's a small room. We want to be respectful to these people who are speaking. Sorry about that. Thank you. Please continue. Yeah, continue. What else? Okay. Okay. Okay. And then the other thing... one, the other thing is when she's... like doing... when she's in a process of... doing all the licensing and then you go to the town And you know, she, as you know, she's the limited English, but when she come here to do some license, people here are very friendly and we need to help. And also, my sister also share with me that her dream is wanna be entrepreneur. And then also her personality, she has a lot of experience working in a restaurant. And then her personality, she wanna talk to people and then smile and then talk to the customer. So this is something that, you know, in her like dream and also her personality, she really wanna doing open her own business here. Yeah. Now I have also my son here. And then, you know, so he's her son, Kyle here. And so also my brother-in-law here. And my brother-in-law has many, many years of experience about like 17 years working in a Japanese restaurant. And then also like working in food industry. He's very passionate about like working the food industry. That's kind of her, that's kind of his, you know, even though he has been working 17 years in, you know, doing the Japanese food, but he's very, he's tireless. He kind of very interested in working on this. So combining my sister and my sister-in-law both experience and passionate about like, you know, having their own restaurant, I think. And also like, as we mentioned before, and then very Arlington town, right? It's just great location for them, yeah. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for your interest. And I will now invite my colleagues to speak, Mrs. Mahon. I would like to move approval and say thank you. And thank you to your family and your sister. Sister's rock. And I can tell by you just sitting here and your personality, as well as having your family here, my family is in the restaurant business. And it really is a business you have to dedicate and your family has to dedicate themselves to. I'm thrilled and happy that not only do you want to come to Arlington, that you've had initially a really good experience, which we'll continue through. It's a sushi town. And the location is a great location. So I think we're fortunate that you've chosen to have your restaurant here in Arlington. And I look forward to great success for you and your family. And I'm happy to move approval. Thank you. Second. And Mrs. Mahon, is that subject to all conditions? And I bring that up just because I noted that the the deputy fire chief specifically mentioned that it had been several years since the property had been inspected. So they would request as a condition an inspection before opening. Is that acceptable to you as well? That you'd have a fire inspection before opening. Yeah. He said that the fire department will check before you open it. Is it okay? Let me see for all the leasing. There's a paper document saying like fire department needs to have all the requirement before she can open it. They say after the day then I need to call fire department. Excellent. And also a board of health department. And the health department. Yeah, excellent, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, subject to all conditions. Any further discussion from the board? Welcome to the board. So if you all, I don't know if you, when you talk about SESWAN, do you know if you're talking about Mimi, who I knew as the previous owner of me, but that's me, yeah, wonderful there. I mean, so I'm glad that you have a relationship with them and that they spoke well of us because we thought highly of them. So thank you. Excellent. Okay, I think we are all set. Turning to him. All the comment. Did you want to offer up to? I do. I'm inspired by you. Any members of the public perhaps on Zoom who would like to comment on this application? Just go ahead and raise your hand in Zoom land. Give Ms. Mara a moment to watch for that. Same no hands. Thank you, sir. All right. So we have a motion to approves subject to conditions by Mrs. Mohan, seconded by Mr. Herd. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. It is unanimous. Congratulations and welcome to Arlington. Thank you so much for the time. Best of luck. Best of luck, yeah. Look forward to experiencing the menu. All right. Yeah, you're all set. Yeah, you're all set. Yeah, thank you. Okay, now we move to the open forum portion of the meeting for public comment in which I will introduce as follows, except in unusual circumstances, any matter presented for consideration of the board shall neither be acted upon nor decision made the night of the presentation in accordance with the policy under which the open forum was established. It should be noted that there is a three minute time limit for to present a concern or request. So we have no members in the chambers. Anybody on Zoom who wishes to participate in open forum, please raise your hand now. Not my trusty iPhone timer for naught. Seeing no hands, raise Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thus concludes open forum. Moving on to item 12 under traffic rules and orders and other business. We have a vote, the date for the 2024 annual town election tis the season, Attorney Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just, yeah, the items number 12 and 13 could be taken in conjunction. The first is a vote for setting the annual town election for 2024 pursuant to the bylaw. That should be the first Saturday in April unless there's some extenuating circumstance. I did review the calendar for any religious holidays and don't see any that would necessarily conflict with that weekend. I think the Christian Easter is March 31st. I think it's towards the ends of Robin Omnit does not conflict Passover either. So if the board wanted to set the town election 2024 for April 6th, 2024, it could do so without conflicting with any holidays on that weekend. Okay. Any discussion and motions from the board? Mrs. Mahon. I'd like to make a motion to set the date for the 2024 annual town election to be Saturday, April 6th, 2024. Second. No, the problem, the problem is just, yeah. And it's at this point that you see the rest of your chair just flash. Yeah. It's like, it's that soon? It'll be fine. I think that I'll just note that this is approved, I think by extension that means that we can plan for a select board meeting on Monday, the 8th, as it would be required, right, for the following election. So I'm putting it on my calendar now, as I was assuming that this passes. Any further discussion on the date for the annual town election? Okay, we have a motion to set the election for Saturday, April 6th, 2024 by Mrs. Mahon. Seconded by Mr. DeCorsi. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Post. It is unanimous. Item 13, opening of the warrant for the annual town meeting 2024, Attorney Cunningham. With that, thank you, Mr. Chair, Michael Cunningham, Acting Town Council. Oh, we'll get to that at the end of the meeting, I guess. With that date set, that would provide for the appropriate amount of time. So if the town elections set on April 6th, the town meeting could occur as required under the bylaws on the 4th Monday in April. So the annual town meeting would therefore be set April 22nd, 2024. And in advance of that, obviously, on the agenda item to set the opening of the warrant, pursuant to bylaws, Article I, it needs to be set. And I was in suggestion in the memo is that the warrant be opened on December 8th, 2023, and then it closed on January 26th, 2024. That would be consistent with the requirements set forth in the bylaw. I would just perhaps suggest a friendly amendment to the motion that the notice of intent to open that warrant be posted no later than December 1st, 2023, if the board agrees that those dates are appropriate. Who's gonna do it? I have a quack. Yes, Ms. Mellon, discussion first, of course. Yes, and we traditionally in November announced after we set the local election date, the opening and closing of the warrant. And I just, if I could, Mr. Chair, through you, I had put down December 4th. Can I just ask why December 8th? That I have no affinity to either date. December 4th could be, that could be the date if the select board chooses Ms. Mellon. That's no, there's no requirement. It's typically the first week of December. I noticed that it was always a Friday and previous, and it was for always the first full week. So I didn't put it on the first, but if the. Okay, nope, then I'll go with your eighth. So I'd like to, if I could, Mr. Chair, make a motion that with the date being set, that the warrant open for the annual 2024 town meeting on December 8th, 2023, and will remain open until Friday, January 26th, 2024. And then we had the friendly and amendment suggestion to about the notice. With notice posted of the intent to open the warrant no later than December 1st, 2023. Does that work for you? All right, so we are setting the beginning of town meeting for the 22nd. So here's my issue with that, is that the election is on the 6th. That's just like 16 days in between the election and the beginning of town meeting with the school vacation, the spring vacation, and then there also, I imagine starting the 15th and running that week, and so I'm thinking about precinct meetings. It's just leaving so little time for the new town, we have to wait for the new town meeting, for the elections for the new town meeting members. It's just a little time, and so I just want us to think about that as we make the decision. Are we locked into the 22nd? We're locked into the 4th, we don't have the option of the 5th, right? I believe the turn in Cunningham has some contribution. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Unfortunately, Mr. Diggins, there is not much flexibility and it can't be moved to an earlier date, pursuant to the town bylaws. Well, that takes care of that, so. It is what it is. And just if I could add to that, when I first got on the board, the warrant would be open for usually about a week, sometimes two weeks at most, and then Mr. Ward, and several years ago, wrote a warrant article that was, this board approved, in town meeting, approved that it should be open for at least four weeks, and what the board did was, and one of the things I'd like to stress, which right now I understand, I have to call him Acting Town Council, that once the warrants does open, as all department heads and boards, commissions, committees that have anything proposed, we do take advantage of the fact that we do have learned a town council to look that over, and it is not a requirement, but any citizens or citizens that do have a warrant article, there is the opportunity, and I would encourage them to avail themself of that opportunity, it doesn't cost anything, to discuss and present your, if you feel so inclined, your warrant article to the town council and town council's office, to make sure that it's smooth sailing from the initial get-go, so thank you, Mr. Chair. The most excellent sermon, Mrs. Mohan. Attorney Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd just like to make one more point that I did run these proposed dates by the town clerk, and she informed me that they would work in terms of the annual town election in the first night of town meeting. It's an important consideration indeed. Mr. DeCourse, yes. And I realize it's tight this year, but this is one of those instances because April 1st is a Monday before that, so it's the tightest it will ever be, but that's gonna happen every six years or however it is when you don't have a leap year, so. We will cope. All right, I think I need a second, unless I just failed to write it down. No, there's no second yet. No, no, there's. All right. Glad to know your chair is not losing his mind, at least not over this. All right, we have a motion as stated by Mrs. Mohan and seconded by Mr. Herd. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? It is unanimous. Thank you, and thank you, Attorney Cunningham, for your good work. Item 14, recommended improvements to Brooks Avenue and Elmhurst Road, Mr. Feeney. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For consideration this evening, I'm hoping to seek the board's support for the installation of two stop signs at the intersection of Brooks Avenue and Elmhurst Road. The board may recall at their September 11th meeting that multiple residents of Brooks Avenue and Elmhurst Road submitted myriad correspondence outlining various concerns they, as a butters, were experiencing on their roadway. These same concerns were lodged again at the October 11th Transportation Advisory Committee meeting, at which point that body discussed the situation at length and reviewed data that had been collected by Officer Corey Roteau of the Arlington Police Department. And while the data that was collected and analyzed did not necessarily show concerns with either speed or volumes, it did appear there was consensus that there was certain driver behaviors that could be impacted or hopefully corrected with the installation of stop signs. And in your packet you did receive sort of a street view looking at the intersection. You may notice it is sort of a skewed L that sort of is not necessarily a hard left turn but makes a gradual turn around the corner. And it's not a traditional T intersection because on the other leg of the intersection is actually a private driveway. So even my own personal observations, I've been down here a few times. In fact, this is something we had discussed with residents a number of years ago prior to the private way betterment as being a concern that may result from a future paving project. And alas, here we are discussing it. But the concern being that motorists tend to not stop at this as if it were an intersection but instead to proceed around the bend as if it was one continuous road. So I know this had been discussed at TAC and there was generally consensus though they did not have the opportunity to wrote a recommendation. We did note that based on that consensus and agreement amongst relevant town staff including, again, Officer Corey Ratau but also Bill Copp-Athorn, the assistant town engineer in John Alessi, our senior transportation planner, we thought that this is something to sort of expedite this and try to get this in before winter sets in that we would advance this evening for the board's consideration. And there will be one other recommendation and that is it is purported that sort of application-based traffic directing apps may be unduly burdening this neighborhood with volumes of vehicles they hadn't seen before. So with that another recommendation we have is that we have the means to reach out to some of these vendors to make note of what are current time limited entry restrictions to make sure that those are known as regulatory considerations by these mapping apps so that during those periods of time there is a higher rate of compliance with those time limited entry restrictions. So happy to take any questions. One thing I will note is that this is not necessarily something that would need to be entered into schedule four of the traffic rules and orders because this is not considered an isolated stop. Again, we'd be essentially installing soft signs to enforce what is the existing right of way and sort of rules of the road. And does this require a select board vote for the two actions that you recommended? Or do you want one? We're seeking support for this action, yes. Mr. Dickens, so I'll move approval of the recommendation. And I will add that the reason this is we're kind of trying to expedite the process and put in a new way of handling these matters that come in for a select board. As you may have noticed lately, me all things dealing with road issues mean I've been sending to the town manager and that's what we're gonna try and do more of is just send them to the town manager and he triages them, you know, hopefully can solve them all, you know, but anything that can't or anything he feels should go to TAC, he'll just send on to TAC, but if he can work it out with his staff, I mean, then it'll just come back to us for approval. So the only reason it went to TAC initially was because I had not had conversations with the town manager about doing it this way. And so they deliberated on it, you know, and then we've had a conversation and just send it on to the town manager and now instead of waiting for TAC to deliberate on it as they are tonight and then get it back to us and with an additional lag of a couple of weeks minimum, it'll just make things a lot smoother and I think make Officer Proto a lot happier too because he's been wanting to do something like this, you know, and what I suggested initially was that we send everything to TAC and the chair could then determine what goes to the town manager or whomever made and then necessarily have to deal with an attack meeting but this is even faster because the town manager's here made on, we don't have to wait for TAC to have a meeting and I think it'll just be a lot smoother if made and then there may be one more step in the process but I'll talk a little more about the town manager and then bring that back to the board for consideration. So that's it, thank you. Mr. Corsi. Thank you, Mr. Chalice. Second, Mr. Diggins motion and I appreciate the memo from the town manager and I'm familiar with this, I'll call it a curve because if you're going down it, I tires well, just treat it as one road so I think that's a good improvement but it also shows where we are approving private way betterments and this happened a while ago, we saw it on Regis Road too. This is maybe the third step on Elmhurst but it's something that we need to consider and encourage people to come back to us as traffic usage changes but if I could, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate Mr. Diggins comments on having this come from the town manager and it just made me think of another intersection that we got a number of letters on from concerned residents and we referred it to TAC but may have asked the town manager and that's the intersection of Churchill Ave and Gray Street and I bring that up because I was walking through there, it's coming through Monotomy Rocks Park and then heading down to Mass Ave recently and that's a dangerous intersection and I avoided a car was coming up Gray Street and I had to scoot across and not that easy for me these days but it's something that I thought about where that is in the process so I encourage that type of thing where there was a number of letters and there's a lot of concern. Maybe that's the type of thing that we can ask the town manager to follow up on and come back to us particular where we've heard from different members of the public and maybe eases the burden on TAC as well. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Corsi. I just want to add my personal emphasis to that because that was a resident who reached out to me and I actually went down and met with the resident, the parent of the child had the very frightening incident we had a lot of community input, I remember on the screen here at Zoom and I think that for situations like that I would encourage a similar response when we've had a lot of that to just really have extra vigilance and awareness of the timeliness of the response and just exploring the full range of options that the town has for deploying X expertise which includes the TAC but also includes the individuals that the town manager recommended so that we can do some prioritization and have a high degree of confidence of responsiveness to the circumstances. So I would add that request to the town manager and also to our TAC liaison to maybe look at that issue. I know that I'm creeping a little bit on the scope on the issue, but I think that the process, Mr. Diggins kind of led off with it which I really appreciate by the way. I think that this is germane just sort of how the board handles these requests. Mrs. Mahon. And I'll try to be really brief but I know it's something that was discussed over the years and it was speed bumps so we don't do that but I know about a year ago, maybe even a little bit longer, Mr. Chaplain might have been here and Mr. Rademacher, our DPW director was here and somebody from this board, I don't know if it's current or a former colleague raised about speed bumps and one of the things we had an initial discussion on and we haven't picked back up on it and since we have the new town manager and we're talking about solutions that TAC and our representative to TAC could bring back as well as solutions similar to what we've done here where we've taken one thing off TAC's platter is if the town manager could, because I know Mr. Rademacher and dedicated about a year maybe two and a half years ago now, the time's flying, we're looking at something to see if it's something we can or cannot do and what was discussed and it was said that we'd talk about it in the future is not speed bumps but the raised crosswalks that we see in other communities so just to take advantage of this opportunity to our TAC representative before you bring that back to them I wanna just refer to the town manager so he can have that conversation with Mr. Rademacher I should say it's a Boston accent and however we deal with it in the future if it is something that is going to be considered for consideration I would ask the chair in the town manager to discuss that whether it should be an agenda item with the DPW or not, so I'll stop there. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Mohan. Any further discussion? Okay, so we have a recommendation. We have a motion to support the recommended improvements from the town manager by Mr. Diggins as seconded by Mr. DeCorsi. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? He's unanimous. Thank you for your work, Mr. Feeney and all by extension to your team and also Mr. Diggins into the TAC. Okay, item 15 draft comments regarding the ale life combined sewer overflows just a note to my vice chair I actually don't need to recuse myself for this because we're not going down the road at least this evening of a letter to the legislature. Mr. Feeney. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this agenda item is certainly of particular interest in the community. It's something we've heard not only more and more about in recent years but especially this past summer it was a particularly wet summer and there were a number of instances where we had significant discharges into the ale life Brooke. Some of it which were so severe that they sort of overtopped the banks in certain neighborhoods in East Arlington leaving some sort of things that you don't want to see sitting on the ale life Brooke Greenway and even making it into news media in various platforms. So with that we saw this as an opportunity to bring this matter before the board for potential consideration as there is an opportunity to weigh in on the draft NIPDs permit which is a surface water discharge permit that the MWRA is seeking to have renewed. This is a permit that was issued 20 years ago and while it primarily pertains to the Deer Island treatment facility it also specifically pertains to a number of CSOs and in particular MWR 001 which dumps into what is known as the Little River at sort of the I guess would be the head of the ale wife Brooke. So given that that comment period was open we thought perhaps the manager in collaboration with the board could consider some comments pertaining directly to that issue which is of particular interest to the town of Arlington and its residents namely the abutters but also the folks that recreate in that area. So the period or the deadline for any entity to submit comments would be November 28th so we have here for you this evening Attorney Cunningham helped draft a sort of preliminary draft outline of what the board may consider for submission in the future. We do have a number of other things that we have to consider further as at least one portion of this permit does list the town of Arlington as a co-permity which is a bit of a confounding factor that we're gonna be discussing further but what I imagine is we have a little bit of discussion this evening we get some feedback but we bring back a more robust set of comments on November 20th for consideration because we would still have time before the November 28th deadline. So the one thing I would add beyond the comments that were in the board's packet as I would like to thank a number of folks representing an organization that many of you are familiar with known as Save the Ale Wife Brooke were kind enough to me to kind enough today to give me sort of an extensive tour starting over in Cambridge and we walked the length of the stretch of that's pertinent to Arlington on all the way down to Somerville and specifically identified sort of checked in on and try to see where exactly those CSO outfalls were so those folks were very gracious with their time but also they've done a significant amount of research and homework on this issue over the years and they were kind enough to share their knowledge with me and educate me on something that I was generally aware of but certainly was never in a position to point to exactly where these outfalls were and who was responsible for which one and I know during our site visit they had already seen some of the draft comments and had taken the time to offer some feedback for consideration as we develop perhaps a more robust set of comments so I was provided that today and it's something that Attorney Cunningham and I can consider further but certainly welcome the board's opinions and perspectives on this matter so thank you. Mrs. Monner. My sewage. Oh. Yes, I am Mrs. Mahan. Please don't confuse me with my twin, Mr. Diggins. We did this on purpose. I do want to thank my colleagues in the chair in the town manager and acting town council for this draft that we have here before us but as well as Mr. Feeney being a relatively new town manager really has brought himself up to speed in Attorney Cunningham also and we have a lot of as we all know competing interests happening in November we have the Niptes permit which only comes up every 15 to 20 years so like this is our opportunity and something will be granted for another 15 or 20 years so I'm very grateful that this is something that the town manager and town council are spearheading and gathering the information as well as I know the next MWRA hearing on the CSO with the city of Somerville and city of Cambridge is also November 28th and I know that town council and town manager we can have conversations with them but previous Attorney Hyme has been attending all those meetings David Morgan the I think engineer one of our engineers or environmental engineers so I also wanna make sure which we are also keeping that in the loop that's not a deadline date for the MWRA separate process with the cities of Cambridge and Somerville that's just when the next meeting is coming up but it's an important meeting I know David Stoff who's an Arlington resident who a lot of us know and I believe he's also an attorney has been working on this issue for 25 years at least now he's sort of brought me into his sphere of trying to understand the ins and outs and legalities of it and I know he was on the walk this morning and Chris and Aniston and others were very appreciative that the town was able to do that so I'm not gonna say any comments because it's not on the agenda for tonight regarding the separate MWRA process which there may be a conflict because that I would ask for a future you know the 20th there has been a request from the Save the Alwife Brooke as well as I've spoken with Gene Benson who's the author and somebody stop me if I should not be discussing it while the chair is here but there's a bill that Representative Rogers filed on behalf that I'd like this board I'll talk to the chair about including that House bill for if it's been a request that the board would consider and endorse it but we're not doing that here tonight my only question knowing that you just got David Stoff's Adobe document today and I also went through it and most of what is in here and this is germane to the Nipty's permit process and not the other separate process it should we include I'm not asking for a yes and no tonight because everything's in here regarding Nipty's permit process and what we should be commenting on but should we include wouldn't say it like this but the worst offender who only has one CSO is the city of Somerville and under the Nipty's permit they have been extremely negligent and have been cited in our in violation for their one CSO outfall I don't know if it's 003, 004 but it's over by Tannery Bay is what they call it and they've been issued I don't know if it's by MWRA or by the State Department of Environmental Protection and they've ignored those violation notices so I'm not asking for an answer tonight but if you could look into that see if that's something that should be included with this or say yes, that is a fact that is the case but that's really not germane to what but to me it seems like it might fall into line that they're violating that what they're doing is they're violating currently violating the current Nipty's permits barrier waiver and they've been cited for that so and I'll have conversations privately over the next week with the town manager and or acting town council about that so that's the only other thing that isn't in there that may be in there but I'll make sure my colleagues are also aware of it thank you and I'll just ask the board administrator to make a note of Mrs. Mohan's agenda request that when we bring this back for final comments that we also include an agenda item I think a separate item would be appropriate so that I as the chair can participate in this part of it and then if the second item would be about petitioning the legislature due to my potential conflict of interest then I could recuse myself for that discussion and have the vice chair run that part of the meeting getting a nod from our attorney so that's always the reaction you want to get well said Mr. Chair thank you sir all right any further discussion or comments for the board Mr. DeCorsi thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you Mr. Feeney and Attorney Cunningham for bringing the draft forward and to Mrs. Mohan for all her work on this issue and I'm glad I know we have until November 28th and I think for November 20th they're familiar somewhat with some of the limitations put in the draft permit and he realized how important this is because as Mrs. Mohan said the last permit was issued in calendar 2000 and this could go for a long period of time but I do think there are limitations in the permit I'd like to see us maybe try to go into a little bit more detail what has happened since the first permit what has changed and where things still need to go and try to the extent we can in the time I get as specific as possible in terms of what we perceive as the limitations in the draft permit here and just if I could Mr. Chair so we talk about Niptes and we have referred to this over the years and just for the public Niptes is a national pollutant discharge elimination system that's the permit that's granted and what we're talking about here is whenever a municipality or an entity wishes to discharge pollutants to a surface water of the United States they have to obtain this permit so we're talking in one of the sections of the permit is combined sewer overflows and that's what we're concerned about with ale life and this overall permit actually applies to the deer island treatment plant but the CSO is our subset of that but I think it's very important the more detailed we can be I think the more they'll look at our comments and so whatever we can do between now and November 20th I think would be great. Thank you sir. So Mr. Diggins, thank you. So the audience for this is the EPA, who else? Mr. Avini? Thank you Mr. Chair, Mr. Diggins the audience would be the EPA who's considering the permit. All right, I understand I mean so so just making clear that we're writing only to them and we're not writing to the broader public. Okay, because if we are I mean there's more that we could provide I mean in terms of education, but got you so then I'm fine with this, it's a comment you know and we talked about violations do you happen to know like me what are their fines in this? I haven't read through all the permit I mean I'm having the hardest time just like wrapping my brain around this I think just kind of sit for four or five hours and read through this we know but are there fines if they violate? I'm not sure I have a definitive answer for you Mr. Keghards. It's gonna take more than four or five hours it is a lot of material over the year I mean this goes back to the cleanup of the Boston Harbor but it's it's a very detailed look at the permit it's okay. Sorry I just Hey I know that. Yeah. And just answered quickly yes there are fines but it's such a long convoluted process which is going through slowly but one of the handicaps to that process is the MWRA is sort of a quasi overseer of that and some may say well they're not acting on it as quick as they should because they don't want to and some may say they're not doing what their limited role is on the violations they're doing what they have to do by law which is receive it keep track of it note it but what I would say and I'm not usually a defender of the MWRA when it comes to combined sewage overflows into the alway but I would give them a little bit of a pass there is more that they could do and I think they should but where they are also in a linear or happening at the same time process and have been having meetings with the cities of Somerville, Cambridge, MWRA they're the host of it but other communities like Arlington, Belmont, elected officials all the way up to the state house have been attending those meetings so that sort of you know I give them a little bit of pass for not doing everything that they could do above and beyond because they're in the middle of that so but yes there are fines but it's getting them enforced and that's a whole nother that's two more hours and we'll talk offline. Thank you Mr. Chair. Any further comments or discussion? Attorney Cunningham. Thank you Mr. Chair. Michael Cunningham acting town council I just want to say that in these comments from the board are extremely helpful and from the manager as revisions of this draft prepared for this board's meeting on November 20th I would also want to highlight something that the town manager said in his initial comments which is some concern over the status of Arlington as a co-promeratee in this document but I think that that'd be something that could be flushed out further in the draft and I would request permission to include that in the future draft for this board's review. Yeah, before nodding. Yeah, thank you for this introduction. Sounds good to us. Okay, so I don't think we need a vote at this point. Do you have the information and advice you need Mr. Ravini? Yes, thank you very much. Okay, that concludes item 15 and includes our regular business for the evening. We'll now move to board and staff announcements and this evening I'd like to lead off with a few words that I've prepared to the public and to my colleagues. Last night I think most of us are aware that voters of Arlington resoundingly approved a property tax override, a prop two and a half override and I want to thank the voters of Arlington for doing so. The community has once again expressed its strong support for preserving our current town and school services and for making smart investments for the future. Last night's vote will not only head off some painful service cuts but will also enable the town to raise educator pay to be more competitive with similar districts, help our vulnerable students who are falling behind and make additional investments in pedestrian infrastructure and trash collection. I'm also grateful that last night the voters overwhelmingly supported question two to provide property tax relief to the seniors who needed the most. And finally I would be remiss if I did not thank Town Clerk Julie Brazil and her extremely hardworking office and elections team for running a smooth, user friendly election all the way from the past few weeks of mailed ballots and burly voting all the way through yesterday's work at the polls and counting the ballots late into the night. We are very grateful for their efforts and once again I just want to express my own personal gratitude for the public support for the town and for the schools. And with that I will go to our board or our staff and I'll think I'll start with the town manager tonight. Thank you Mr. Chair. First let me second those wonderful remarks. I know the support of the voters and the taxpayers means everything to both town and school staff. So our deepest thanks to them for their continued support and investment in their local government. The next thing I would like to say is because sort of acting town council it doesn't seem to roll off the tongue as much and I think a few of us have stumbled with it this evening. I am pleased to announce that as of Monday of the coming week acting town council Mike Cunningham will become just town council Mike Cunningham. So as you know, Attorney Cunningham has served the town admirably. I believe his three year anniversary is maybe tomorrow. As deputy town council and then served us admirably in an acting capacity since Attorney Hyme has departed and Abley saw us through the special town meeting and I am just have been most grateful for Mike's support and council during sort of what has been a hectic month but also just want to note how dedicated and committed Attorney Cunningham is to the community and he takes it upon himself to attend board committee and commission meetings just to learn more about what they're doing not necessarily because he was asked to be there for a particular agenda item and he is one of those folks that just also loves town meeting. So another perk of knowing exactly what you're getting with this job in Arlington of it's a significant time commitment and I am just very grateful that Mike was willing to step up, step forward and put himself forward as a candidate for the permanent position. And then one other thing I would like to note in terms of a hire is we are very fortunate and pleased to announce that Colonel Philip McGovern has been appointed our new veteran services director. With that I will note that at 11 a.m. this Saturday at the central fire station located at 411 Mass Ave we will be having our annual Veterans Day ceremony so I invite not only the board but the members of the public to join us for that momentous occasion. Also perhaps meet what will now be veteran services director McGovern but I will also note that it is my intention to bring Phil before the board at our November 20th meeting for a more public introduction so the members of the public have the ability to sort of put a face with the name as well and start familiarizing him with the community. So thank you. Thank you and just to piggyback on that and when I were in announcement mode just for my colleagues on the board are aware that the town will be doing its usual march on Veterans Day and we're being asked to gather at 1015 at the Walgreens Parking lot for those board members who I hope will be joining me and the town manager and other officials. Attorney Cunningham, do you have any announcements? No announcements. No remarks. I get it quickly on the remarks. I just want to say thank you to the town manager and to all those who are involved in the process. I'm really appreciative of the appointment. I've been a lawyer for over 20 years. The last three years in Arlington by far my favorite years as a lawyer. I've really enjoyed working for this community. I really appreciate the opportunity to be in, to serve in this capacity. Feel really lucky to be an adopted member of the Arlington community. So thank you very much. Ms. Maher. No announcements. Congratulations. Thanks. Indeed. Mrs. Mohan. Well, I did call the town manager and town council right after. Kept them on the phone too long. Couldn't contain my enthusiasm but I am so happy for Arlington. I know I have worked with attorney Cunningham over the past three years along with attorney Heim, former town council. And even though you were just a deputy town manager, as I have said before, town council is a coach of about 12 different sports teams as 12 different teams. And attorney Cunningham is a very good listener, very good at interpreting and able to discern what it is and what area of the law it is and taking the time, gathering the information for me and always coming back with very concise and directing to the point. Every time I've bothered called him. So I am really thrilled to have him as town council because I think it's a very difficult position to fill versus 50, 75 years ago or even 30 years ago. It's evolved so, and I'm gonna thank the town manager for the process that he conducted and I know you've hired the best candidate. I want to also really quickly just give once again and I know his name has been brought up before our recreation director Joe Connolly who I can't tell you and I know there's times I haven't been there but I've seen him come down on a Saturday or Sunday to events that are town related but not necessarily Arlington recreation events and he was once again down on a Sunday for the Danny Kelly Foundation fundraiser they had down at the rink and he was there the whole time. I felt very guilty because I know it's an Arlington event and that's time away from his kids and family but he doesn't even think twice about it and he was there the whole time and I know he has a lot in his plate that I've been talking to him and we all have about Hills Hill, the artificial turf committee can go on and on and on and he's just a wealth of knowledge and dedicated to that. And then I would, I've had just preliminary conversations with Mr. DeCorsi but for the chair, if between you and the town manager say between December, no later than early February, I'd like to have an agenda item regarding our town employees, their salaries. One of the things I would like to discuss is, and I've just discussed with Mr. DeCorsi, we haven't said what a preference or decision would be but I also would like on that agenda item we have at that night that when we do comparable salaries for our town employees, meaning unions, there's a list of 10 communities. When we do positions, non-union, town manager, et cetera, we do the Arlington town manager 12. So I'd like an agenda item that has those two different lists and have some discussion because I feel like there should be one, and maybe there shouldn't, maybe there should be two separate comparable lists but I think there should be one. So, and also when the chair and the town manager thinks, and I'm not trying to inflect us into negotiations or bargaining with any of our employee units but when we do have that, I know when I look at what's applied to union teachers, police, public works, especially the fire, that of the current 10 that they're compared to, our all into public works is the bottom. Our teachers and police are two up from the bottom and our fire are three from the bottom. But that's, I know the chair has to work out, we have budget discussions that stop mid-end sound, and then kick in in January, but I'd like to know later than February, the first week of February have that as an agenda item when the chair and the town manager thinks it's the best use of our time to do that. And I do wanna say thank you to our chairman. 40% of the voters came out, 61% voted overwhelmingly. It was one of the most uniquely difficult campaigns that I could not compare to any other election override debt exclusion that I've been involved with in the past. There was no tried and true framework for it. There were no possible predictors. The only thing that the Invest in Arlington group that our chair was our representative on behalf of the Slick Board that we all know could do was tell people what the work was and get it done and it was just a very unique campaign and I'm amazed that when I look at the core group, Mr. Halmuth and the school committee and finance representative, as well as the parents and others that were involved, I'm amazed by what that core nucleus group, which for the numbers, they were not great but they were mighty in terms of what they got done but then they got the word out to dozens and dozens and hundreds of other people. But a lot of work was done by that nuclear group. I'm very appreciative of it and to your families also who I know have had to live with this since June. That's it for my announcement. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Mohad, Mr. Herd. Thank you. Congratulations to the attorney coming in. Very well deserved. I've always been very impressed by your thoroughness since you've been on the job. It's funny, time flies. It's been three years. We first met you in Zoom and then I think we met you for the first time about a year ago and I was like, wow, you're tall. That happens in the post-COVID world. But I've certainly had a great, good time getting to know you and I think in my tenure on the board, I've talked to then attorney Heim more than I talked to any of the town managers that I worked with just because of the amount of expertise that we rely on from town council in a lot of the issues that come before us. So I certainly look forward to continue to work with you. I do wanna thank the town or congratulate the town, I guess, and the residents and the chair and everyone that worked so hard on this vote. I think going into it, you call it cautious optimism, but you never really know when people get into the ballot boxes. It's a kind of funny time with the economy and whatnot but I think there was a good message and a good campaign and a good job of getting out and explaining to voters why we needed it and certainly the good that will come of it. So I was really happy to see that result. And then I unfortunately can't, won't be there on Saturday for Veterans Day, so I do wanna thank all of our veterans ahead of time. I'll be in Lake Placid, you could just be happy that it will be about 20 to 30 degrees warmer here than where I am, but we'll be enjoying the sights for a hockey tournament, but I'm always hate to miss that in the chair. Mr. DeCourson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, congratulations to Attorney Cunningham and I have been impressed right from the beginning when you took over as acting town council, there were things that came up right away and you stepped right in and did the research, gave us good advice and worked really hard and this is a well-earned position, so thank you and best of luck in the position. I also wanna thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your work as coach here on Invest in Allington and your coach here, all the volunteers and thank the voters for Allington for the support for the override and it really will make a difference and we take it very seriously how we're spending the town's money, but we certainly appreciate the support and appreciate all the work that so many volunteers, so many volunteers did and that leads to, as we move forward, and this is Mahan and I just mentioned, we did speak earlier, we are gonna be meeting, the Long Range Planning Committee is an advisory group to the town manager and we're gonna be advising him for the first time on November 17th. That will be our next meeting and that will take place early that day, but it'll be an opportunity to re-look at the five-year plan in light of new information that has been discussed in light of the override and we'll start taking steps forward and I could, I would ask to update the board on that meeting at our November 20th meeting. The last thing I have is just with the announcement of the opening of the warrant and there's gonna be things that we'll wanna put on the warrant, but one thing, and I may talk to Mr. Diggins about this in town council, is over the past year, we've had three or four things that have dealt with the MBTA right of way on the bikeway, and I don't know if there's anything that needs to be done through town meeting, through special legislation, but we had it with the blue bikes. I've had continuous requests from people who are concerned about a stairwell that needs to be repaired that's on the walkway from Mill Street to the bike path that is in disrepair, but because it's in the right of way, it hasn't been included in CPA requests and I also had received a request and this was from Ms. Malofchak a few months ago about interest in making a historical marker where the remaining railroad tracks are down by Water Street. Again, that's in the right of way. So I think this may be something that requires some additional time, but I'm giving a heads up to attorney Cunningham that I may ask for some guidance if there's anything that we can do to expedite that town meeting they have to do. That's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Diggins. Thank you. Hardly know where to start here. I guess I'll start with attorney Cunningham. So congratulations, Mead, and I'm delighted that you are going to stay in with us, Mead, and I have worked with Mr. Cunningham early on on the war and article workshops, and he really enjoys working with us on that, which is more proof that he really doesn't enjoy town meeting and are you still going to work on this? So I had you down for the fifth. You're staying with that now? I'll be there, Mr. Diggins. Okay, so then that's the announcement is that, Mead, our third annual war and article workshop will be on the 15th of December, and probably 7.30 over Zoom, so thank you very much for that. And I guess, Mr. Hurt, you're going to miss our first Town Day 2024 meeting tomorrow? Or you guys follow in on the road? I think I'll be at the opening ceremony, so. Oh, okay, all right. Well, just to let you all know that we're getting going on 2024, Mead, and so, and yes, congratulations, Mead, on the hard work that was put in or on the success of the hard work that was put in on the override, Mead, it was a great team, Mead, and also, and I think, Mead, the wide margin really kind of indicated how much, Mead, the residents, Mead, understand the reality of the situation, Mead, and as I said a lot, Mead, I think it's been coming upon us, Mead, to prepare people for the future, Mead, and there are two things. Mead, you can find out for people what their priorities are, Mead, what they cost, Mead, and how do we go about getting that in their two ways to get it, through overrides, Mead, and through new growths, Mead, and I think as it comes upon us, Mead, to figure out, Mead, how to do the latter, Mead, and how to prepare them for the former, Mead, so that Mead, it's more a matter of course, as opposed to Mead, a big event, and I think we have it in us to do that, and I'm certainly up for doing it and look forward to preparing for the future, so thank you very much. Thank you, I want to add just two of the things, one of my own chance to congratulate Attorney Cunningham. We did serve next to each other, sitting literally next to each other in town meeting, and I saw right away, just how carefully you were prepared for everything that could have come up, your instant wisdom, and I thought, yeah, this guy belongs here, so I'm really glad to have you by our side. Thank you for your commitment to the town. I also wanted to just note that I had the privilege this morning of showing up at Arlington High School at 8 a.m. for the ribbon cutting for the new humanities wing, and along with members of the school committee, the town manager was there, the members of the high school building committee, and it is extraordinary space that our students, high school students being with there, they're not going to be overt in their enthusiasm, but they had their camera phones out, and they were drinking it all in, and the public will be invited to tours of the new space in January. I encourage the public to watch for that announcement because it is a space well worth visiting, and I think that when you see it, you will be delighted at the rich learning environment in the beautiful space that we have provided for our students. So I want to add my congratulations and in gratitude, first to the people of Arlington for making the financial commitment to build this facility to the school administration for its leadership and its vision for how to build it, for the school building committee for their incredibly hard work behind the scenes to make the right decisions and to guide the town, to the town manager and his team who have been intimately involved into this board for their support. So it was an exciting morning, and I can't wait for this project to kind of hit into the home stretch. And one more quick thing. I have a jury duty on the 20th. I mean, it's our next meeting, so I may be either coming here late or maybe coming in via Zoom. Oh, right. So yeah, and this is like some town like in the West. I mean, not Western, but like 20 miles or so out, so I'll be taking commuter rail, so chances are I'll be late, but I'll get here as soon as I can. I appreciate that. All right. I believe that concludes our business. Entertain a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Second. We have a motion to adjourn from Mrs. Mahana, seconded by Mr. Herd. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you.